There's nothing I hate worse than being without power or electricity. It's always a pain, especially in the warm months of May. Well, more than 10,000 people are now without power thanks to a snake of all things.
Thousands of people in Durham, North Carolina, are probably cursing a snake this week. One little reptile managed to take out the power for thousands. Let's digest what happened.
According to Duke Energy, the power company in the region, a black snake came into contact with electrical equipment at a substation. The company confirmed the reptile was to blame for a power outage on Monday, via WBTV. I wouldn't break out your pitchforks and torches just yet to hunt down the poor critter. It's very likely that the reptile went up like a candle stick if it touched anything electrical.
Snake Takes Out The Power
The power outage lasted for at least three hours — beginning at 11 p.m. and lasting around 1:30 a.m. At least, it happened at night so things weren't completely a furnace indoors. But it was a fairly large-scale outage with 10,000 people complaining. Resident Immanuel Holland said he "woke up in the pitch dark."
Pretty scary stuff. The real question is how did the snake get into the substation. The power company confirmed it had protective fencing that's supposed to prevent a scenario like this one. But apparently that equipment isn't as foolproof as we all thought. Honestly, the poor reptile is also a victim in all of this.
Resident Jamichael Daye told CBS17 that he felt "sorry for the snake cause he was probably just trying to be warm." Ain't that the truth.
Somehow, it's not the first time a reptile caused issues like this. In 2017, a snake caused a power outage in Greenville after getting caught on a power line. That outage affected 5,000 people. The reptile species causes about 100 outages a year on average, which is a lot more than you would think. But, hey, at least they didn't cause a power outage to a whole country. Because that would be crazy, right?
